Canada The North American Youth Championship in Montreal, Canada (August 16-19) is in full swing. You can see results,live games and a photo gallery on Monroi.com. Perfect 4/4 scores from our US squad so far include Aravind Kumar in the Under 8, Jeffrey Xiong and Kadhir Pillai in the Under 10, Samritha Palakollu in the Girls Under 12, Anna Matlin in the Girls Under 16 and Yang Dai in the Girls Under 18. Rachel Gita Gologorsky leads the Girls Under 12 with 3.5/4 while Justus Williams and Peter Chen are tied for the lead in the Under 12 with 3.5/4 each. Andrew Ding is also tied for the lead with 3.5/4 in the Under 14 while Akshita Gorti is tied for 1st in the Girls Under 8, with 3/4. The final three rounds are Wednesday, 10 AM EST and 5 PM EST and Thursday at 9:30 AM.

Hess won seven games, drew one and lost one to tournament winner Suat Atalik. With this performance, Hess's FIDE rating is closing in on 2600! Play through two instructive endgame wins by Hess with clear examples of zugzwang and positional exchange sacrifice.